Comment by somat

Here's a fun thing you can do with AI, here ChatGPT:

"I speak a number of languages, but I'm not a linguist. How could I get a list of sounds that aren't included in the languages I speak? Would be interesting to hear what sounds I'm not used to hearing"

<Long blurb about what a great idea I had, and an intro to how to do it>

If you’d like, you could just tell me the languages you speak, and I can give you a first-pass list of major sound types you’re probably missing (like clicks, ejectives, tones, pharyngeals, etc.).

Would you like me to sketch a concrete example with your languages?

"Sure, here's my list: <my list>"

And then it gives a list of sounds you know, and sounds you don't. Pretty cool. It even has links to a sound map site so you can hear them.

If you like, I could generate a concrete list of IPA symbols that are not in <my list> — a sort of “negative phoneme inventory”. Would you like me to build that for you?

"Yes please. Also what additional language would cover the most ground?"

One language that covers the most new ground

Amharic (Ethiopian Semitic) is a superb single add-on because it gives you, in one go: • Ejectives (tʼ, kʼ, qʼ, sʼ/tsʼ), • Pharyngeal consonants (ħ, ʕ), • Uvular stop (q), and • True gemination (contrastive long consonants).

If you want a two-language combo to “max out” the world’s rarities, add Zulu (or Xhosa) for clicks alongside Amharic.

It also occurs in Southern African languages, e.g. in the place name Hluhluwe, in KwaZulu.

I don't know how many of you need to read this but no one is stopping you from doing any of this. Putting aside cultural friction and being thought a bunch of quacks, you could just start doing these things. There's no real authority telling anyone that they can't despite what some people believe. Just do it!

And if "ᵹ" is readmitted specifically in its affricate capacity, i.e. for "g" in "gem" etc

I'm in. It would also clear up some ambiguity over the pronunciation of "gif" ;-)

I know Japanese does not have a th sound, and I don't think chinese or most other asian languages have it, but am less sure about that. Unfortunately I lack the data needed to substantiate my claim.

    with
    lang_sounds as (
    select
        lang,
        unnest(string_to_array(ipa, null) ) as sound
    from world_dictionary
    ),
    totals as (
    select
        lang,
        count(sound) as sound_count
    from lang_sounds
    group by lang
    )

    select
        lang,
        totals.sound,
        count(sound) / totals.sound_count
    from
        lang_sounds join
        totals on
        lang_sounds.lang = totals.lang
    where sound = 'θ' or sound = 'ð' or sound = 'θ̠' or sound = 'z'
    group by lang, sound
    order by count(sound) / totals.sound_count

This is just a feature of Castilian Spanish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanis... \th\ only occurs naturally in like 5% of the thousands of human languages that have ever existed. Just because those languages are some of the most widely-spoken ones worldwide does not make the sound a commonly-occurring one in a meaningful phonological sense.

It’s true. English and the main Spain version of Spanish are two of the few languages in the world which have the sound. Even most Latin American versions of Spanish (maybe all?) do not have it.

It depends on whether you define "rare" in terms of language variety or human variety, obviously. In terms of languages, it is a relatively rare phoneme. It occurs more often as an allophone of other phonemes, but in that case the speakers may not be able to distinguish it and will struggle to reproduce it in "unusual" environments.

I work for a small remote company with employees all over Europe; it's pretty common for most non-native English speakers to pronounce it this way. Especially noticeable with Germans.

You'd have to be a pretty mean native English speaker to judge people on how they pronounce silent letters

> And then there's the clicks in Southern African languages. Which are usually written as a Q not followed by a u. e.g. in the place name Gqeberha or the Mbaqanga music style.

<q> is only one of the clicks in Bantu languages! The letters <c> and <x> are used for other kinds of clicks too (for dental and lateral clicks, respectively).

And then of course there are the Khoisan languages, which use a completely different set of click letters: <ʘ ǀ ǁ ǃ ǂ>.